


In the morning, I'll be better

by hawkeish



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Morning Kisses, Prompt Fill, Sleepy Kisses, they're cute your honour
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:40:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28177776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hawkeish/pseuds/hawkeish
Summary: Kirkwall always calls to her, though, before she loses herself in the dream. Loud and urgent, usually. But Merrill doesn’t mind. Merrill loves listening to the city in the early morning. In fact, Merrill just loves mornings, a fact that surprises absolutely nobody. Mornings are still, balanced, calm.This morning, though, is annoyingly cold. As she wrinkles her nose against the gentle onslaught of the day, rolling onto her side, Merrill realises why. When she opens her eyes, she sees a tangle of limb and duvet curled before her.Carver.A slice of Carver/Merrill domestic bliss to fill the kiss prompt "the playful kiss on the tip of the nose," because I'm always on my Carver/Merrill bullshit.
Relationships: Carver Hawke/Merrill
Comments: 4
Kudos: 12





	In the morning, I'll be better

Morning has broken over Kirkwall, just.

This morning is a soft, summer thing, all honey-gold sun and milk-white clouds that hang in the sky like spun sugar. It’s quiet, too; the city is only a murmur now, rather than the cacophony it’ll become later, when the muggings are in broad daylight and the bodies of last night’s victims start floating to the surface of the murky dockwater. If Merrill presses her eyes shut tighter, and counts her breaths as she listens to the wind whispering through the vhenadahl out in the square, she might be able to convince herself that she could even be deep in the evergreen belly of the Brecilian forest. Before mirrors, before Audacity, before everything.

Kirkwall always calls to her, though, before she loses herself in the dream. Loud and urgent, usually. But Merrill doesn’t mind. Merrill loves listening to the city in the early morning. In fact, Merrill just loves mornings, a fact that surprises absolutely nobody. Mornings are still, balanced, calm.

This morning, though, is annoyingly cold. As she wrinkles her nose against the gentle onslaught of the day, rolling onto her side, Merrill realises why. When she opens her eyes, she sees a tangle of limb and duvet curled before her.

Carver.

He’s stolen all the covers, as usual. It’s hard to tell where the man starts and the cocoon of woven Dalish blankets ends, though she can pick out a few features. Dark hair, the curve of his spine, an arm littered with a pearlescent constellation of scars, much like her own.

Something warm and stirring blooms in her as he slowly comes into focus. Less the saccharine giddiness of when this first happened, more a feeling of right-ness. Of belonging. They’ve shared a bed for long enough that this is a ritual, now. Waking half-naked, pooled in hazy morning light as it dances through the window beside them. Placing a hand on his barely-exposed shoulder, her touch breath-light, ghostlike. Tracing maps on his exposed skin with her fingertips, until he slowly stirs and hums a “hm?”

“Carver,” Merrill murmurs, tapping a rhythm on his arm. An old Dalish ballad, one she used to hear Tamlen sing under his breath to Mahariel: a song of hearts stolen, held, trapped in amber ever-more. “Covers.”

For a second, there’s stillness, and a perfect silence. Until, after a moment, Carver’s sleep-gravelled voice mumbles “Maker, not again.”

Watching him try to unravel himself whilst half-asleep is a wonder. Merrill huffs out a laugh as he flops onto his back, makes a face and tries to wriggle free of the covers with all the elegance and decorum of a fish rudely snatched out of water.

“Very graceful,” she notes.

“Oi,” he mutters, one arm still trapped under a layer of blanket, but he’s smiling.

“Would you like a hand?” she says, moving her arm to rest on his chest, drumming her fingers over his heart. She can feel it beating beneath her palm, steady as a prayer.

“Maker!” He shivers at her touch, and his arm suddenly pops free. “You’re bloody freezing.”

Merrill snorts, gesturing at her one foot that’s still slightly covered by the frayed edge of her bedsheet. “Creators, I do wonder why!”

Carver glances down through his lashes, eyelids still heavy with sleep. “Ah,” he replies, with a bashful smile. “Yeah. Well.”

“Well what?” Merrill echoes, splaying her fingers flat over his heart; a smile plays on her face as she watches the gentle rise-and-fall of his chest.

“Well,” Carver says, with a mock-thoughtful look. “I have a way I could warm you up. And apologise for stealing the covers.”

Before Merrill knows it, he’s managed to finally unroll himself from his swaddle, has pulled her on top of him into the cosiest bear-hug known to man or elf alike, and has planted a ludicrously theatrical kiss onto the very tip of her nose.

“You’re ridiculous, vhenan,” Merrill laughs, brushing his bed-mussed hair away from his forehead as she wrinkles her nose in response.

“I know,” Carver replies, then reaches up and brushes his thumb across her cheek and kisses her properly—softly, sweetly, every inch of him filled with longing.

Yes. Merrill loves mornings, and she loves mornings like these in particular.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! I hope you liked it, it was a lot of fun to write for the DA Drunk Writing Circle. anyone else's partners always stealing the duvet??
> 
> title stolen from Tennis' 'In The Morning I'll Be Better', which is such a great song


End file.
